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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23905018">I'll Never Leave You Like That.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/theatergirl06/pseuds/theatergirl06'>theatergirl06</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>We Save Each Other Over and Over [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Six - Marlow/Moss</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 18:21:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,711</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23905018</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/theatergirl06/pseuds/theatergirl06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A night in the pub is usually uneventful and calm. But when you're Katherine Howard, some nights aren't so uneventful after all.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anne of Cleves/Katherine Howard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>We Save Each Other Over and Over [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1723069</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>67</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I'll Never Leave You Like That.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>TW: SERIOUS rape attempts, struggling, flashbacks, blurred vision, brief mention of blood.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It was a simple fact in the world that Katherine Howard was pretty. Hell, it was what she’d been known for in her last life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If you were to ask someone what made her so shockingly gorgeous, they probably wouldn’t be able to tell you. She was short, average weight, but her height made her seem generally small. There was just something about her, an energy that radiated beauty, and it was only helped along by her pink hair and near constant smile. She just...glowed. She commanded attention when she entered a room without even meaning to. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course that wasn’t why Anna had fallen for her. She would of course admit to how beautiful she was, but she would also say that was hardly her favorite thing about her. She would talk about her positivity and her spirit and the way she made everyone feel like they were the most amazing person on the planet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unfortunately, not everyone else could see that. In fact, most people never saw that. They took one look at her pretty face and her pretty eyes, and they stopped looking there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And sometimes, when she was really unlucky, some men decided that that pretty face and those pretty eyes were their property because they were just so pretty.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In her last life, Kat had developed several methods for dealing with men like that over her years of dealing with them. Slipping out from under them, turning just to the left so that when she touched her it wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>quite </span>
  </em>
  <span>so painful. Going away into her head and not coming back. Pretending everything was normal. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Those methods had worked when it was still happening constantly, with the same people, all the time. It had done no good once she’d had to deal with the aftermath of what she’d really faced. And she’d learned how.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But on the rare occasions when she felt those hands on her, it became much, much harder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Plus, getting them all to get away from her was always hard, no matter what. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wasn’t thinking of this one Sunday night in the pub, when she was sitting at the bar and sipping a soda. She was thinking of the new song she was going to try and cover on the guitar when they got home. She loved the pop rock style of their show, but there was something about acoustic guitar covers that felt haunting and light and right for her and her voice. She loved it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anyway, she let herself drift away into her thoughts. That was her first mistake. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anna had once told her she looked especially cute when lost in thought, a smile on her face, a starry look in her eyes that made them shine, her head cocked to one side as though she was staring at something from a new angle. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course people were going to notice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe it wouldn’t have gotten as far as it did if the other queens had been with her. Even just one of them. It was much easier to decide a woman belonged to you if she was all alone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Catherine wasn’t even in the building. Jane had been feeling a bit sick and headachey after the show, so Catherine had taken her home to watch a movie and have some pasta. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anne and Anna were in their usual spot on the dance floor, surrounded by a huge crowd of people. Kat was often there too, but not tonight. Tonight, she was sitting and thinking, and she was fine with that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cathy was sitting at a booth, completely shielded from the view of everyone else, and completely shielding herself from everyone else’s eyes. Kat couldn’t see her from where she sat, but she was pretty sure she was reading. She’d been carrying around </span>
  <em>
    <span>100 Years of Solitude </span>
  </em>
  <span>all week, and she hadn’t gone anywhere without it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was trying to envision the bridge of the song in her head and was using her fingers to mimic the guitar chords when she felt a weight slide into the stool next to her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turned to see what it was, but she felt a man’s hand on her shoulder before she could even see his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was older than her. Thirty something, tall and muscular with a tattoo on his right bicep. But she didn’t care what he looked like. He was determined, and he had a stone cold look in his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Right away, she knew he wasn’t going to listen to her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, little songbird.” His voice was deep and sent tremors through her entire body. </span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“Uh...hello. What can I do for you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man leaned into her shoulder, placing his chin on her back and leaning into her hair. She squirmed, but his hands were tight around her arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come with me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She felt chills running up and down her spine. She saw them. Manox, Dereham, Henry, Culpeper, all of them, with their hands on her shoulders and their heads on her back and their arms wrapped around her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She tried to push back against the onslaught of arms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d really rather not, thank you.”</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>The arms tightened. Her vision blurred and then cleared until only the tall, muscular man was with her, arms on her arms, hands on her thighs, lips on her lips. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shoved. Hard. Her eyes filled with tears, but the man kept touching and kissing and yanking on her hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get </span>
  <em>
    <span>off </span>
  </em>
  <span>of me!” It was more anger than she’d ever used while talking to a man, and it felt surprisingly good. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The goodness went away instantly after he stealthily put his hand over her mouth and his other arm around her waist, lifting her up, kicking, biting and flailing, and carrying her out of the pub and into the alleyway. The alleyway that was dark and silent and she knew no one could see her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man stared at her, a surprisingly shark like smile on his face. She tried to back away, but he still had hold of her waist, and in a flash, he’d pinned her against the brick wall. Her head knocked against the hard brick, and her vision blurred once again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She felt his hands sliding all over her. First on her cheeks, cupping her face and pressing it to his own. Manox had done that during one of their piano lessons. It had been her first kiss. She remembered the way he had kissed her and played eerie chromatic intervals as he did. She’d struggled, but her head had only hit the piano.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Next, they slid to her waist, encircling it, just like Dereham had done every time he’d scooped her up out of the dormitory at the house of the Dowager. She hadn’t wanted to go, but after night after night of Francis scooping her up and lifting her, she’d given up on fighting. Pinned to the wall with blood trickling down the side of her head, she stopped fighting now. She felt herself go limp. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then they went to the insides of her thighs, just like Henry’s hands had clumsily groped at her for nights as he lay next to her in bed, crushing her under his own weight, unable to move anything other than his hands. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She felt crushed now. As though all of them were piling onto her at once, in the form of one pair of </span>
  <em>
    <span>very </span>
  </em>
  <span>strong arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She felt his hands crawl up the sides of her legs, getting higher and higher. She closed her eyes, trying her very best to disappear into the back of her own mind, but somehow, her brain wouldn’t leave. She was stuck here, pinned to the wall of the alleyway, eyes squeezed shut in pure fear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t touch her!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She heard a thump. She felt herself falling, then wrapped up in arms once again. With her arms no longer pinned, she reached out blindly, smacking and trying to break free.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Liebling, I’m begging you, just hold still and breathe. Please.”</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>She couldn’t believe it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Slowly, she opened her eyes, desperately wishing for it to not be a trick, another trap.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was on the ground in the alleyway. Her attacker was nowhere to be seen. Instead, she was wrapped up in the arms of her girlfriend. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She felt tears of relief sliding down the sides of her face as she threw her arms around the German queen’s shoulders.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh god, I...that was…I hope you know I wasn’t….he grabbed me, and I didn’t want…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course I know that. You really think I’d believe that you betrayed me?”</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Kat blinked. “No, of course not, it’s just...well, this has happened before, but this is the first time since we’ve been back that it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>this awful,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and the last time it got this bad…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It didn’t work out too well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was silence between the two of them for a second. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You did well, you know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What, I did a good job at flailing against a wall?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anna laughed. “No. You’ve just relived some of the worst things you went through, Kat. And you’re sitting here, talking to me, and of course it’s all right for you to break down, we all break down…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But never at the right moments.”</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>“Right, because the world hates people. But you </span>
  <em>
    <span>haven’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>broken down, Kat. You didn’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Still needed protecting, though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t you dare get mad at yourself for this. It is </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>your fault.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We all need saving sometimes, liebling.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh yeah? You want to talk about that time with the executioners?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That was a weird day.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Give yourself some credit. You saved my life.”</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Kat sighed. “But here’s the thing. Things like tonight...you’ve done this so many times. It just doesn’t seem fair.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anna kissed her girlfriend gently on the forehead. “It’s not about fair and payback. It’s about love.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Still. I just wish there was a way I could repay you somehow.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That man didn’t get to finish what he started doing to you. That’s payback enough.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kat stared up at Anna. The moon was reflecting around the alleyway and making everything glow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you. For coming for me. Again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course.” </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>All right, I know a lot of people love heroic Kat! I do to, I just also love heroic Anna! Heroic Kat is coming soon, don’t worry!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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